


Nocturne

by Ellie5192



Series: A Little Light Music [5]
Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Mention of murder and sexual assualt, Pre-ship, and hugs, lots of hugs, non-graphic crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellie5192/pseuds/Ellie5192
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Murder is never fun to investigate... and it’s these family tragedies that always seem to hit the closest to home."<br/>When a particularly difficult case puts Sharon Raydor on edge, it's Andy who steps in to pick up the pieces and hear her secrets.<br/>Written as a prompt-fic for forsheiswhatiam: ‘Sharon/Andy - established relationship, comfort after a hard day’. Pre-ship, one-shot, follows after Slow Dance in the Little Light Music series, but can stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nocturne

**_Nocturne_ **

 

When they get word of yet another murder, it’s a Saturday, and it’s two in the morning. He doesn’t want to wake her, because he knows that Rusty has been having a hard time with tests this week, and she takes all that on board too. But she had insisted on being on the on-call roster with the rest of them, and she’s never let strange hours stop her before, even in those early days when her greatest problems with Rusty were getting him to listen to her at all.

It’s almost three by the time she makes it to the scene, impeccably dressed in her designer jeans, tee shirt and jacket, and he’s surprised to see that the boy is not with her. Then again, he has grown up some, and proven enough times that he’s not about to run away from the best thing that’s happened to him, so leaving him at home with a note on the counter does sound like the better option.

“Captain” he greets. His tone is half cheery for seeing her, and half weary for the crime they’re about to get tangled up in.

“Andy” she says in return. She gives him a brief smile, one that says she’s glad to see him despite the circumstances, and then turns her attention to the white tent that’s been set up around their victim.

The victim is young, and pretty, and could almost pass as Sharon’s daughter for all the similarities between them, and it takes him a good two hours but he finally realises that that’s probably the exact reason his Captain seems a little out of it as they go through the motions of investigating the scene. He catches her pondering the young woman’s face at one point, her eyes misty. He doesn’t begrudge her that. They all come across cases that affect them more than others; they’re human, after all.

“Do you need a minute, Captain?” he asks her by her shoulder, his voice considerate and barely a whisper.

She only shakes her head. “No, thank you Lieutenant, I’m fine” she replies, not unkindly.

They do what they can at the scene and drive back to the station in their separate cars. The sun has just started to rise. He walks into the murder room a few minutes behind her, and sees her standing by the window, the only person in the room, her back to the door. Her arms are crossed, and the box of evidence she’d collected from the scene is on his desk near the whiteboard.

He comes to stand next to her, noting the way she’s so engrossed in watching the sunrise.

“You okay?” he asks again, now that it’s just the two of them; now that she’s somewhere she might consider accepting his shoulder.

“I’m fine” she says thinly. She sighs to herself. “Or at least, I will be, once we put that son of a bitch behind bars”

He smiles at her, and recognises her need to regain control and get out of her own head. He rests his hand on her shoulder for just a moment, a show of solidarity, and then steps back out of her space. The moment feels to raw- too personal- to keep up their usual level of flirting, or whatever it is they do. He can’t deny the attraction between them, but he doesn’t yet know her well enough to be _that guy_ for her, and he doesn’t think she’d accept his help anyway. For all the warmth and love that Sharon Raydor is capable of, she’s been independent long enough to know how to handle this on her own; to want to do it on her own. He can respect that.

“I’ll start setting up our timeline” he mutters, and she nods.

But he hesitates a few steps from her, and seems to make up his mind as he turns back to her.

“You know, it’s not an ungodly hour on the east coast, if you needed to make a phone call”

She spins quickly, her eyes wide with shock, and maybe a bit of awe. She’s not sure how he came to know that her daughter is currently in New York, but he just stands there and looks at her with a soft expression on his face and a tender look in his eye, and she’s immensely grateful. She smiles at him, and could almost burst into tears, but she only nods and holds his gaze.

“Thank you” she whispers.

He nods once, and then continues back to his desk to collect their evidence and start putting together the bare bones of their known timeline.

She makes her way to her office, closing the door softly behind her. As she pulls her phone out of her pocket, she takes one last look out her window. He’s methodically going through their evidence, paying her no attention, and she smiles.

When he steals a glance through her window a couple of minutes later, she’s leaning back in her chair, absently twirling a bit of hair, her eyes focused on nothing in particular as she responds to the person on the phone with a friendly guffaw and a light-hearted response. They obviously get along well. He can’t hear what she’s saying, but he does hear her laughter ring out from behind the glass.

He looks away, leaving her to her conversation.

Half of the team arrives early, despite it being Sunday, and they quickly get to work, establishing their victim’s timeline, who would want to hurt her, family connections and possible motives. It becomes obvious, after they get her preliminary autopsy notes, that it was a crime of passion, and it was personal, and when a rape kit comes back indicating assault, it puts everyone on edge. Their suspects are quickly narrowed down to a cousin and an uncle. Nobody feels any better about that.

When they question the girl’s mother for the second time it becomes apparent that the step-father is their likely candidate instead, and that a possible cycle of abuse had been going on behind closed doors, and that the mother had no idea. She mentions that her husband- recently separated and bitter for it- is a hopeless alcoholic, and as Andy is briefly looking away out of second-hand shame, he notices Sharon wincing, and he makes a mental note to ask her about that.

He’s never pried into her marriage- to her face or otherwise- though he knows she’s still got a husband and that they haven’t been together in over twenty years. He thinks that perhaps her story could be frighteningly similar to his; the thought shakes him.  

They all go home that night with heavy hearts, and are back on Monday morning with grim faces, the whole team brought up to speed and ready to go. Murder is never fun to investigate, but this case is starting to look like a revenge killing by a spiteful, vindictive, drunken step- father, and it’s these family tragedies that always seem to hit the closest to home.

By the end of the day they’ve made an arrest, the step-father confessing everything. Andy barely stops himself from hurling the man through a window. Sharon turns on her heal and walks out of the electronics room before he can even begin negotiating a deal.

They meet each other in the hallway, and look almost simultaneously towards the second interview room, where their young victim’s mother is waiting to hear the latest news of the case.

“I hate this part” she says lowly, her voice catching, her eyes betraying how deep her emotions run.

“I’ll lead” he says.

She doesn’t fight him, and that tells him all he needs to know.

When they tell the woman why her daughter was killed so brutally, she all but faints with grief, and it’s Andy who catches her, and sets her down in the chair, and places a comforting hand on her shoulder, and lets her cry. Sharon sits down in a chair next to her, and holds her hand, her eyes kind, but he can tell that if she tries to do more, she’ll crack too, and so he steals himself, harnesses his years as a homicide detective, and does the dirty work.

An aunt- an older woman with a strength in her spine that Andy recognises as hard life experience- comes to the station to collect the mother, both of them leaving in tears. And the team watch her go as uniformed officers escort their convicted killer through the murder room.

They form a sloppy procession line from the room to the elevators, but as he gets level to Sharon, his eyes blood-shot, his expression hard and unforgiving, he stops.

She stands her ground and meets his gaze with blind fury.

“You know what that bitch said to me?” he slurs in her face. “You know what she said? She said, you were never really part of our family, and I never loved you. That’s what that spoilt brat said. I never loved you. I raised her, and that was the thanks I get-“

“Get him out of here” she says to the officers, her disgust written on her face.

“I raise that bitch, I feed her, I give her all the teenage bullshit she wants, and that’s how that ungrateful little…”

His voice fades as he’s lead out of the room, and Sharon’s face quickly melts from revulsions to drained grief. She turns back to her people who are gathering in a tighter group by Provenza’s desk.

“I’d like to thank you all for your great work on this case. I know- it wasn’t easy… and… well... thank you for being so efficient, keeping your usual standard. Great work, everyone-“

Her voice is becoming thick with emotion, and she tries to blink away tears in that way she does.

Nobody moves closer to her, but they all convey their sympathy, and their support, and their own forms of grief. After a moment of swallowing it all down and nodding blindly to them, she turns on her heal with a faint ‘excuse me’ and walks away, walking briskly out the door, trying to look inconspicuous.

Any other time he’d let her go. Any other time he’d look at her retreating back with a mix of helplessness and regret. Any other time he’d accept her need to be alone, and to not show her weakness to the rest of them. He’d stay still, his mouth open, his eyes sad, and his hands in his pockets for lack of anything better to do. Any other time he’d ignore the looks Provenza gave him as he stood rooted to the spot, his emotions clear for all to see.

But not this time.

With a final look at the other people in the room, and with little consideration for what they will think of him, he takes two jogging steps in her direction and is out the door after her.

He finds her in the women’s toilets at the sink, splashing water on her face and trying to hold back wracking sobs. She’s only half succeeding.

“This is the women’s” she says thickly, not looking at him, her focus on her white-knuckled grip on the counter.

“Are you okay” he asks seriously, softly, ignoring her half-hearted attempts to dismiss him. It’s obvious she’s anything but ‘okay’, but his tone suggests he’s asking more than a simple question, and she shakes her head. It looks like she’s merely trying to clear her thoughts, but he moves forward anyway, and comes to stand next to her, almost touching her shoulder. She’s shaking, an errant tear escaping, her grip on the sink tight and her arms almost quivering under the strain of holding it all back.

He places his hand over hers, slipping his fingertips under her palm, and squeezes tightly. She lets go of the bench and holds his hand, and he can definitely feel her trembling.

“Breathe” he whispers. “Just breathe it out”

She takes a deep breath through her nose, releasing it out through her mouth with a shudder. She does it again. He nods along with her, subconsciously breathing along with her. His grip on her hand remains firm, grounding. She steadies herself, and then looks at her reflection in the mirror, and then meets his eyes.

“You okay?” he asks her again, whisper-soft.

She nods, her eyes still watery, but her emotions better controlled.

His hand is still gripping hers as she straightens to stand level with him, and it might cross a line or two, but his other hand comes up to cup her shoulder for a brief moment, and then he’s pulling her into a hug. He wraps both arms around her shoulders, friendly and solid; a show of support that she needs more than she needs the pretence of propriety.  

“Thank you, Andy” she mutters into his shoulder, her eyes clenching shut, her hands coming up under his arms to clutch at his shoulder blades. He rubs one hand lightly against her back.

They pull away, and she grins humourlessly, rubbing under her eyes to be sure her makeup hasn’t run. He steps away, giving her the chance to collect herself.

“You good?” he asks.

“Yep. I’m good”

“Let me take you home, make you some dinner. You look like you could use a stiff drink tonight”

She scoffs out a laugh and half shakes her head. There’s bitterness in her expression that he can’t place, and he remembers that he wanted to approach her about something to do with this case, but can’t remember what specifically.

“I don’t know about a stiff drink, but a glass of wine wouldn’t go astray”

“Well, how about we get out of the ladies’ bathroom and head over to yours”

“You don’t have to-“

“I know, but I’d like to, if that’s okay”

She meets his eyes, and he looks sincere enough, and friendly enough, that she just nods her head, once, firmly, her mouth pressed in a pursed grin.

“Well, okay, if you’d like, then, thank you”

She smiles at him again, and he reaches for the door handle and leads her out. They walk into the murder room and see Tao and Sykes at their desks, heads down, finishing the last of the paperwork. They both notice her, but neither of them say a word, and she figures it’s not hard to tell that this one’s been difficult and leave it at that.

“Go home” she calls, as she approaches.

Both heads pop up to look at her properly.

“Finish this in the morning. It’s after five. Go home” she says again kindly.

“I don’t mind staying, Captain” says Sykes. For a nice change it doesn’t sound like ass-kissing, and she’s grateful for that.

“I’m almost done here” says Tao, nodding along to Amy’s comment too.

“Well, it’s up to you” she responds. “But don’t stay too late”

“We won’t Captain” says Tao with a smile. She returns it and continues to her office to collect her things. Andy waits for her at his desk, straightening out a few files and placing them in his second draw for the morning. Sykes and Tao are on call for the night, hence their willingness to stay, and Andy figures that any paperwork he does have left can wait until tomorrow, like Sharon said.

“You calling it a night, Lieutenant?” asks Sykes lightly.

“Sure am. I’m still beat after yesterday’s early morning”

It sounds like a thin excuse, though it is partially true, but nobody questions it, and Sharon walks out of her office only a moment later, so he doesn’t have to wait in any awkward silence.

They all call pleasant goodnights to one another, and then Sharon and Andy walk down the hall side by side, he gestures her into the elevator, and they make their way to their cars.

“I’ll follow you” he says softly.

She only nods.

At her condo Rusty seems almost unsurprised to see someone following her inside, and she’s not sure what to make of that. He greets her at the door, and doesn’t flinch when she hugs him, which is not normal for them, but still nice. He seems to understand that she needs this, and so briefly hugs her back without comment.

Andy continues past them and into the kitchen, remembering his way enough to gather some ingredients for dinner as he listens to Sharon question Rusty about his day, an easy distraction.

They eat in easy silence, and Rusty excuses himself to do homework for the evening. They clean up the dishes side by side, and exchange small talk while Sharon gets him a soda from the fridge and pours herself a glass of wine as surreptitiously as she can. She’s never felt very comfortable drinking in the presence of alcoholics, and Andy notices her tension, and remembers what it was he was hoping to discuss with her.

They make their way on to the patio, and the night is mild enough that he knows he can strike up a deeper conversation and she can’t use the chill as an excuse to cut him short.

She sighs as she lowers herself into a chair, and he copies her, his eye keen on hers. She takes a long sip of wine, contemplating the sky and relaxing for the first time all night.

“Long day” he says quietly, breaking the silence.

“It was” she nods, her voice low in her throat. She frowns to herself, and takes another little sip, getting lost in her thoughts a little.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, looking down at his finger that’s playing with the rim of his soda can.

“What is it?”

He meets her gaze, finding her to be amenable, and somewhat inquisitive. She must sense that he’s quite serious, but she doesn’t shy away.

“Why did this one get to you so much? I mean, even after you’d spoken to your girl?”

She flinches from the question, but her expression stays open, and though she looks away from him, he knows it’s only to gather her thoughts. He thinks she probably needs to get it out there as much as he needs to hear it, and he’s suddenly glad that they have become so close, because bottling it all inside is never healthy, and if he can help her in some small way, then he’s done something good.

“You’re right. Lisa Thomas did remind me of my daughter. And I did get a little too involved in that”

He waits as she steels herself for a confession.

“But that’s not everything”

“No?”

She looks back at him, noticing his kind eyes, his open posture, the way he’s giving her both space and encouragement to say what she needs to. She looks back up to the sky.

“No. My husband- Jack-“

“The one you’ve been separated from forever?”

She nods with a humourless smile and takes his encouragement.

“He was an alcoholic too”

Andy waits a moment, to show he’s listening, and to allow the revelation to settle over him. It’s not the shock it should be, and he now understands what his subconscious was trying to say; the signs he noticed but couldn’t interpret.

“Violent?” he ask, his voice as gentle as a breeze, and tinted with subdued anger at the possibility.

“No. Not usually… but there was this one time… my daughter was three…”

She seems caught in her memory, trying to find the right way to describe the situation in a way that makes sense; in a way that explains why she’s still married to the man.

“She was sick with a fever, and she woke in the night crying. My husband had come home drunk from the bar. He was on the couch, sleeping, and she started yelling. My son was only a few months old, and he woke up, and so he was crying too…”

Andy can imagine the scene; middle of the night, two babies bawling and inconsolable. He can almost picture what’s coming next before she says it, imagining what he would have done if he’d woken up on the couch half hung-over to that noise. He closes his eyes against the final blow.

“I managed to calm the baby, and I was just putting him down, and I walked to my daughter’s room…”

She swallows down a lump in her throat.

“… and there’s Jack, holding her up in front of him, his hands under her arms… and he’s _screaming_ at her to be quiet, be quiet, we’re trying to sleep…”

She shakes her head, her face showing her emotions as she relives the scene in her mind, her voice thick.

“… and then he shook her”

Andy’s eyes flare with anger. He can claim a lot of guilt for his actions, but he can honestly say he’s never harmed his kids while drunk. The very thought sickens him to his core.

“He shook her once. And God, that moment… I ran in, and I grabbed her, and she’s still crying her little eyes out, and he just stood there with this stunned look on his face. He knew what he’d done. He knew. He sobered up that damn fast. So I told him to leave, and not come back until I could trust him not to kill his children”

She takes a deep shuddering breath, wiping the few tiny tears that have escaped. She’s still not looking at him, but he understands that.

“The next morning I dropped most of his things off at his mother’s and told him he wasn’t seeing the children again until he was sober”

Andy smiles, an empty smile full of all the possibilities that his own disease could have brought, and he counts back all of the days he’s been sober and thanks his stars.

“And your daughter?” he asks gently.

“She was fine, thank God. He didn’t shake her hard enough to do anything. She doesn’t even remember it…”

She pauses, biting her lower lips, her brow furrowed.

“But- Andy, what if he had? What if he had shaken her more than once? What if I hadn’t grabbed her in time?”

He is quick to shush her, moving his chair closer so that their knees are touching, and he grabs her glass of wine and places it on the table, while the other hand pulls her into another hug. She goes willingly, and quiet sobs wrack her body as all of the emotions of the last few days catch up to her. He can understand now. He can recognise what had been the final straw. He can see that weeks of rehab could have turned into months of building their own separate lives; that the intention of coming back together as a family had been replaced by the changes they’d made in the interim. He can imagine that years of living harmoniously, apart, had built a stronger relationship than living together and fractured. Suddenly twenty years had gone by, and their children were grown, and they’d never gotten around to that divorce, and it kind of suited them not to, what with Catholicism being a neat, handy excuse.

He rubs her back, and rocks her gently, and she clutches lightly at his shirt, and he buries his nose in her hair and just holds her. After a short time she sniffles, pulling herself together, and leans back from him, his hands still on her arms, one of her hands still on his chest.

“I must look a wreck” she says, huffing at herself, wiping under her eyes.

“A very pretty wreck” he assures.

She lets out a weak laugh at him, thankful he’s at least trying to flatter her. She won’t meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to air all my dirty laundry”

He nudges her chin up with one knuckle, making her look at him, and he holds her steady for a single heartbeat.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know” he says gently, honestly.

“Thank you” she whispers.

He smiles, a quick quirk of his lips, and then pulls her toward him with the knuckle of his index finger under her chin and his thumb lightly grasping it, and places a light kiss on her forehead.

She looks completely bewildered, and he knows he just punched a good handful of rules in the face, but it had felt right, and so he’d done it. She smiles at him again, and he thinks she might have even blushed a bit, but he can’t be sure, and anyway, that’s not why he came tonight.

He reaches back, picks up her wine glass and hands it to her, and then cocks his head towards the door. She nods and they head back inside. She gets the sense that he’s bringing the night to a close, and so she tosses back the last mouthful of wine, and isn’t surprised when he quietly throws the half-empty soda can in the bin.

She places the glass in the sink, the dishwasher already full, and is turning around when she feels him come up behind her, only a foot away.

She turns and looks at him, bashful under his tender gaze. She’s still not comfortable with this side of him, though she can’t deny that she likes it very much. She can’t speak for his behaviour away from the office, but he only seems this subdued when they’re alone, and it’s late, or he’s at her home, and she’d like to say it has nothing to do with her company, but she thinks that might be wrong. She knows why she behaves the way she does, and it has nothing to do with the location. 

“I should probably head off. My boss has me in at the office early in the morning”

She grins at him, the first truly light smile of the night.

“Well, wouldn’t want to upset the boss”

He grins right back. She thinks he likes her sense of humour, when she dares to show it.

“Thank you for coming tonight. And for listening. You didn’t have to, and, well, it really helped to have a shoulder to cry on”

“Hey, we all get cases that hit us. I’m just glad this one was wrapped in a neat little bow. Not all of them are”

She nods thoughtfully, wrapping her arms loosely around herself. “No. I guess I’m still adjusting to the constant death and dismemberment part of this position”

“You’ll be fine” he assures, and she gets the impression he’s talking about more than just the job.

“Thank you, Andy. Really”

“You’re welcome”

They look at each other for a long, solid moment, neither moving closer nor stepping away. The spark- and yes she can recognise there’s a spark there somewhere- seems more intimate than it has been before; more innocent somehow, like it’s less about kissing him senseless and more about letting him wrap her in his arms and hold her all night.

He blinks and looks away, and the moment is broken, and once again she finds herself glad that he can find the strength to do that, because she’s so emotionally drained that if he’d suggested spending the night in her bed, she’s not sure she would have had the strength to say no.

He turns and heads for the door, and she follows. She sees him out, neither of them lingering, and when she closes the door behind him she lets herself fall back against it and take a moment to breathe. It was easier to deal with her attraction to Andy Flynn when it was simple flirting; when he didn’t hold all of her secrets. She has a fleeting thought that she really needs to get even with the personal information, but then grins at herself, because she’s seen his FID file; she knows plenty.

Rusty pads down the hall, dressed in his pyjamas and carrying an empty water glass. He seems cautious, but not suspicious. She likes that he trusts her that way. She steps away from the door and meets him in the entrance area.

“Flynn gone?”

“He has. You can just leave that in the sink”

“I was going to grab another glass to put by my bed”

“Okay” she says, smiling. She steps up to him and hugs him briefly. “I’m going to bed”

“Okay”

She pulls back, pushing some hair out of his eyes, which makes him grin and shake his head, the hair falling right back into place. She only smiles at him. None of this is really new to her.

“Goodnight Rusty” she says, stepping towards her room.

“Goodnight”

“Not too late” she adds, pointing her finger.

“I won’t”

She smiles, and nods her head once, and then she’s in her room, closing the door softly behind her, trusting that he’ll get himself off to bed okay. The talk with Andy had been cathartic in a way she wasn’t expecting, and the motions of her nightly routine relax her. By the time she’s slipping under the covers, the most she has to say about the few days she’s had is that she’d partaken in a long-overdue phone call with her daughter. She makes a mental note to thank Andy for that too in the morning, and quickly allows herself to drift into a dreamless sleep, the scent of his aftershave lingering on her skin, and the memory of his arms around her comfort enough.

She’s coming to accept the changes in their relationship, though she knows she shouldn’t. She just can’t bring herself to care about that. 

**Author's Note:**

> Although the request was for established relationship, this prompt fit so well with where I wanted this series to go, and I mean, well, this is kind of an establish/ing/ relationship, and that counts, right?  
> If there are any inconsistencies in Andy’s character, please let me know. I'm catching up on my Closer watching, but there are still a lot of gaps, and I recognise that I may make a huge error because of them. Anyway, as always I hope you enjoy.


End file.
